Pages

Friday, 21 March 2014

Toddler Handprint Craft: Making Memories From Art

Handprint crafts are a super fun activity for kids and a wonderful way of making memories from when our little ones are little.

Seasonal handprint crafts are one of my favourite crafting projects to do with the boys - we've made handprint Easter bunnies, Thanksgiving turkeys, Halloween bats and Christmas reindeer. We've made handprint flower bouquets and snowflakes and wreaths and trees. We have made literally millions of handprint crafts over the years and never seem to run out of ideas to incorporate those little construction paper hand shapes into crafting projects.

When they're just toddlers, though, the reality is that crafts like these are well beyond our little angels' abilities. Any mom that tells you differently is lying. Any of those parenting blogs and crafting sites that show neatly constructed and beautifully photographed "kids crafts" claiming to be for the preschool set are full of shit. They are crafts created and constructed by mom. Smearing paint and scribbling with crayons and gleefully dribbling glitter and shredding paper to bits with safety scissors is the extent of a toddler's crafting ability - and these precious little messes are absolutely priceless. But a neatly traced and cut out construction paper handprint turned into a recognizable animal is well outside the realm of reasonable expectation at that age.

One of the earliest handprint crafts I made with my boys was when they were just two and three years old, and it still hangs on the wall over our arts and crafts table today. This easy handprint craft is a fun way to combine the kids' creativity and artwork and a cut-out of their little hands to capture how small they once were - and unlike most handprint crafts, even the littlest toddlers can manage this craft with only a little help from Mom.

First, have the kids colour or paint a large piece of poster paper and a dozen or so popsicle sticks. Trace and cut out their handprints on their favourite colour of construction paper and have them glue the handprints onto the poster paper painting. Use coloured craft pipe cleaners to attach the markered popsicle sticks together as a frame, then glue the popsicle stick frame onto the poster paper background. Cut down to size and hang on the wall!